NEUROSIS‘ Pain Of Mind is set to be re-released alongside CHRIST ON PARADE’s A Mind Is A Terrible Thing full-length. Both initially released in 1987, these two albums will see a simultaneous worldwide reissue on LP, CD, and digital formats on May 25th. The artwork for Pain Of Mind has been updated by Josh Graham (A Storm Of Light) in the tradition of the previously-reissued NEUROSIS titles, and the album has been remastered by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering.

Pain Of Mind marks the inception of one of the weirdest and most powerful bands there ever was as they begin their odyssey through the sonic landscape: thirty-three years, eleven albums and counting. These gritty punk songs bear little resemblance to what NEUROSIS would become, but the future was written here, and if you listen closely to these kids — barely out of high school at the time, you can hear their early influences: The guitars and existential anguish of Amebix and Rudimentary Peni, the passionate politics of Crass, the heaviness of Sabbath — and here, too, they lay the foundation for some of their enduring concerns: the pursuit of transcendence, and contemplation on the downward suck of despair.

As Ian MacKaye coyly suggests in the East Bay Punk doc Turn It Around, there are “a lot of holes to fall into” growing up in the Bay Area. In 1987 Dave Edwardson was eighteen, Scott Kelly was nineteen, Jason Roeder was sixteen, Chad Salter, the band elder, was twenty-one, and they had already fallen into many of them, including, of course, the great abyss of depression. Only a teenager could write the punk anthems “Black,” “Grey,” “Life On Your Knees,” and of course the title track, “Pain Of Mind.” They are songs of survival.

NEUROSIS! by Murray Bowles

With Pain Of Mind, NEUROSIS sunk their claws into the hearts and minds of the East Bay scene like no one else. They were fucking dark, gazing right into the abyss and refusing to turn away. The cacophony of vocals on Pain Of Mind– Scott’s unhinged screams, and Dave’s guttural growl, suggested a familiar sort of internal mania: like the voices in an unquiet mind, paranoid, but for all the right reasons. And Jason Story’s original cover art perfectly captures that torment.

NEUROSIS shows in the Pain Of Mind-era were like nothing else. The pit was wild; people rolled around on the floor, climbed the walls, threw themselves off the stage. Watching NEUROSISplay felt like a seizure that reset your brainwaves: shock treatment, an exorcism. For a few days after a show, you always felt real mellow.

NEUROSIS reminded us that maybe we weren’t free, but at least we were locked up together. It sounds melodramatic, but NEUROSIS might have saved our lives. — Anna Brown

★ IDIOTEQ is a DIY online magazine covering some of the hardcore punk and rock music scene, and supporting DIY ethics and local bands

★ IDIOTEQ (pronounce “idiotec”) is a phonetic transcription of the word Idioteque – the act of suddenly going into a crazy, seizure like state. A vision of a society, where people are increasingly more obsessed with pointless technology, selfishness and mindless entertainment than life itself.